Today, we’re learning how to make a master workbook for homeschool.  The workbook used as an example in the video below is an inexpensive one from a craft store.  However, many of the workbooks we buy as parts of more expensive curriculums are the important ones to make into masters.  Keep in mind that you are only making copies for your own child to use, so that they can repeat worksheets as necessary for extra practice and to make it easy for you to make their seatwork packs.  You can also “re-issue” the same worksheet as part of a chapter review or unit test.

The video below shows how to make a master workbook for homeschool.  In the video I 3-hole punch the actual worksheets.  Sometimes I don’t punch the pages but instead slip them into sheet protectors in the binder.  (Subscribers can click here to watch the video.)

How do you save money on homeschooling?  Let us know what works for you in the comments below!  Frugal Homeschool: How to Make a Master Workbook is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

From Preschool Prep, he learned all the colors and shapes, numbers 0-10, the alphabet (uppercase and lowercase), and all of the sight words.  Of course, quite a bit of time has passed since this video was shot, and Truett has now completed Pre-K 1 and Pre-K 2 and is ready to start kindergarten – at 3 years old!  Did I mention he also knows how to read now?  I attribute this success to starting early with Preschool Prep.

If you haven’t read about how we got our 3 year old son ready for kindergarten in 1  1/2 months, you can read the posts now:

Learning Experiment: Preschool Prep Series DVDs

Preschool Prep DVDs Experiment – Week 1

Preschool Prep DVDs Experiment Results

This video from last winter is Truett showing off his skills with flash cards, demonstrating just 16 of the sight words he knows, plus counting.  (Subscribers will need to click through to this article to watch the video.)

We got a late start with Truett and this system, as the DVDs recommend starting from 9 months old to 15 months old.  Our 1 1/2 year old daughter, Seven, is already starting on the system too and she loves it!  How We Got Our Kids Ready For Kindergarten in 1 Month is linked to Works for Me Wednesday.

The kids have loved the idea of the library all along, and now are in for another surprise:  we’re turning the library into a library / homeschool classroom! 

This all came about when we realized what a hard time our school-aged kids were having doing school at home, especially since they have both been in public school.  It’s not that “school-like” to do your work at the dining room table, in the living room, or in a bedroom. 

That’s when my husband and I realized the problem and perfect solution.  The problem was one of structure: the kids need a dedicated space just for school that isn’t used for other things.  The solution was to create a real classroom in our house.

I’ve ordered mini desks and chairs for the students. We also ordered large bulletin boards from a school wholesaler so that we can transform the walls of the classroom into real bulletin boards.  I’ve moved all of our Creation Station and other crafting supplies into the classroom.  The school supplies and books have also been relocated.  Books have been moved into slide out tubs on the bookshelves by category (level 1 and level 2 easy readers, chapter books, historical fiction, etc.).

Once the classroom is finished, I’ll be posting pictures along with the details of how we put it together frugally so that we got the most classroom for the lowest price.  I was able to scavenge a lot of the organizational tools from our garage sale stuff waiting to be sold in the garage! 

In keeping with our family’s minimalist lifestyle, the homeschool classroom is also minimalist.  We’ve got only what is needed, everything is organized and labeled, and all items have a specific home.

Have you set up a homeschool classroom in your home?  What are the special sections and details in your homeschool classroom?  Let us know in the comments below.

This, of course, requires not only lesson planning and materials creation (aka making lots of printables!), but some intense planning and coordination of schedules for 4 little people and 2 adults.  This all translates into very busy days with a lot on my plate!

The “My Amazing Summer” materials are ready and will be posted for free download next week.

The Joan of Arcadia, Season 1 Homeschool Study Guide workbook is still in progress and will be available for purchase as soon as it has been tested out by my daughter.

Our Summer  2011 Homeschool Tentative Curriculum

Tween:  My 11 year old daughter is doing a unit on USA geography, reading Violet’s Amazing Summer and the Lily series, creating a summer “yearbook’” called “My Amazing Summer”, and doing a religion unit from the television show “Joan of Arcadia”. 

Toddler 1:  My 3 year old son is doing reading, spelling bee practice (5 letter words), handwriting, language and math on Time 4 Learning (our online homeschool curriculum), USA geography, watching Sid the Science Kid for science, and more.  He’s already finished Pre-K1 and is half-way through the curriculum for Pre-K2.

Toddler 2:  My 1 year old is using the Preschool Prep DVD series to learn the alphabet, numbers, colors, and shapes.  We used the Preschool Prep DVD series with our son and he learned all the material in just a few weeks!

Team project:  The 2 oldest kids are doing a team project on recycling.  They’ve both been named “recycling captains” of the house and are responsible for setting up and carrying out our family’s recycling plan for papers and plastics.

I know a lot of families take the summer off when it comes to home school, but I find it an even more enjoyable time to do lessons.  We can work in trips to the library, lessons at the park, outdoor exercise, etc.  What are your family’s plans for homeschooling? 

If you know of more free Halloween homeschool resources, please leave the links in the comments below.

Free Halloween Home School & Lesson Plans

These Halloween homeschool free tools are good for home school families and school teachers alike.

1.  Printable Halloween alphabet letters to color.  These are the perfect size to cut out and use for bulletin boards or to laminate for practice spelling out words.

• A-P  Alphabet Letter Patterns- Halloween (A-P)
• Q-Z Alphabet Letter Patterns- Halloween (Q-Z)

2.  Halloween lesson plans from Education World

3.  Halloween math word problems

4.  Homeschool Halloween games: Includes Halloween bingo, crossword puzzles, memory game, cryptograms and worksheets.

5.  Halloween costume history lessons

6.  Halloween homeschool lapbook

7.  Halloween lesson plans and activities for all grades. Grade levels are marked.

Free Halloween Homeschool Lesson Plans and Printables was originally published at HomeEverAfter.com on October 29, 2009.

The Guinness World Records Homeschool Workbook is designed for homeschool students from 4th grade through high school age.  It can be used with any year’s Guinness Book, so check out your local library to borrow instead of buying.  A lot of hard work went into making this Guinness World Records homeschool workbook, which is something very different from what I’ve seen for non-traditional (but educational and interesting) homeschool topics. 

The Guinness World Records Homeschool Workbook includes:

• Vocabulary, (both provided and some chosen by the student)
• Scavenger hunts to encourage reading, use of the index and table of contents, as well as memory
• Word searches and vocab/definition matching
• Fun activities (physical education/exercise included)
• Writing prompts
• and I even threw in a little Shakespeare (hey- English majors can work Shakespeare into almost any subject!)

I can’t release the Guinness Book of World Records Homeschool Workbook until my daughter has made it all the way through the lessons, in order to check it for workability.  She’s loving it so much that she’s blazing her way through at an astonishing rate! 

Thanks to the bloggers who have written me asking to review it already!  Stay tuned to Home Ever After for the announcement very soon of when our new Guinness Book of World Records Homeschool Workbook will be available.  Make sure you subscribe now to our free updates so you get the notice as soon as it’s ready.

When I began homeschool for my tween daughter, I found that there weren’t very many resources that tell what books people are using for Christian homeschooling their kids.  Since this was the case, I’ve had weeks of research to find good books to add to our curriculum and felt compelled to share the info with other homeschool moms and dads. 

Even if you aren’t a Christian or don’t teach homeschool with religion, these books are wonderful for instilling good values regarding the tough issues associated with growing up.

The great thing about this series is that it’s actually 2 series:

1.  The Lily Series:  The Lily series is the fiction side of this set.  The books have a Christian main character that girls can relate to in real-life situations that teach about growing up issues with biblical principles as their guidance.

2.  The Young Women of Faith Series:  The Young Women of Faith books are the nonfiction side of this set.  Each fiction book has a companion nonfiction book that discusses the topics in-depth.  The chapters include exercises and questions that your child works through as part of the reading.

At first, it was hard to find which Lily books went with which Young Women of Faith Books, so I’ve compiled a list that you can use to help when purchasing the books.  All of the books can be bought at Amazon, and many can be found used on eBay as well.

Young Women of Faith and Lily Books by Nancy Rue

You’ll notice that there are a few extra Lily books that don’t have companion books at the end of the series also.  Nearly all of the books linked above are available from Amazon with free super saver shipping, and they frequently go on sale (I’ve seen them for as low as $2 apiece).

An Investment in Your Child’s Character 

The Young Women of Faith and Lily series is a great investment in molding your child’s character, and the money is well spent.  If you have more than one daughter, plan to keep this set for homeschooling the next girls when they are the right age (9-12 years old).  Another great option is to share the series with another homeschool family so you can share the cost of the books, or even donate them to your church’s library once you’re finished.

You don’t have to go through the books in order of the series, either.  We’ve started with book #5, The Blurry Rules Book, in our homeschooling.  However, you will want to read the Lily book before each companion book, as there will be references to what the characters did in certain situations. 

As we go through the books, I’ll be linking my individual reviews and ratings of each book here to save you some time.  Happy homeschooling!

Disclaimer:  In compliance with the FTC Guides, updated 10/5/09, this article has no material connections. IS World Media (ISWM) received no fees for the writing or publication.  The Young Women of Faith and Lily books were purchased by ISWM to facilitate the research and review.  We cannot make claims as to the typical results users should expect from this product, as we are trying it for the first time and have no way of knowing other users’ experiences.

If you’re a homeschool parent and would like your name, twitter name, or blog link included on the list, please leave a comment below and we’ll add you to the directory.  Please be open to answering a question or two for homeschool newbies if they come to you, since that’s the whole purpose of the directory.  Thank you!

Homeschooling Parents / Families by State

Alaska

• Danelle Ice.  Twitter @HomeEverAfter or Home Ever After 

California

• Kendra Fletcher. Preschoolers and Peace
• Twitter @hsjungle or Home School Jungle

Illinois

• Twitter @SAHMinIL or Catholic Christian Homeschooling

Kansas

• Crystal Paine. Twitter @crystalpaine or Money Saving Mom 

Michigan

• Holly.  Twitter @momgoose05 or View From the Aerie
• Homeschool Dad.  Twitter @wdihomeschool or Why Do I Homeschool
• Kristi Sawicki. Twitter @sawickis or Saving Dollars and Sense

New Hampshire

• Kristy M Elliott.  Kristy’s Facebook or Kris Kreations

Ohio

• Laurie. Twitter @PoeticLotion or http://www.laurieharley.com 

Oregon

• Twitter @GracefullGirl or  http://gracefullgirl.blogspot.com

Texas

• Twitter  @TadahMom or ignitethefire.com 
• Amber.  Twitter @AmberOliver or  http://www.classichousewife.com

Virginia

• Tiffiney. Twitter @hippieprincess4 or My Southern Hippie Married Mom of Four Life

Washington DC

• Toni Anderson.  Twitter @HappyHousewife or The Happy Housewife

Wisconsin

• Ellen.  Twitter @homeschool or Homeschool Recess

Unknown States

Heather.  Twitter @HeatherSolos

Lynnae.  Twitter @Lynnae or beingfrugal.net

Twitter @HomeschoolFever

Twitter @tompkinshomesch or What We’re Learning Now

Twitter  @TheFrugalGirl or  http://www.thefrugalgirl.com

Twitter  @mamaisbloggin http://www.mamaisbloggin.blogspot.com

Twitter @mollysmommmy

Our daughter, London, has always been in public school.  We had concerns at each grade level which we brought up with her teachers.  These included her reading comprehension, writing, math and spelling not showing mastery at any level. The teachers kept brushing off my and my husband’s concerns, saying that they were sure she’d catch up by the next year and that they’re focused on “exposure” at this point, not “mastery”.  We went along with the teachers’ reassurances until this year when she started bringing home Fs in the first week of school.  Some focused investigation and work with her in the weeks that followed showed us that she was, as we suspected, NOT working at a 4th grade level.  She was more in line with a 1st grade level. 

Needless to say, my husband and I were both infuriated that we send her to school for 6 hours a day to show no progressive learning on basic concepts, such as single digit addition and subtraction, knowing how to read and spell sight words (including 3 letter words), and being able to read directions on homework problems and understand the directions.  The school system is failing my daughter and the teachers don’t seem to mind.

I was even more furious that the teacher was comfortable assigning vocabulary words to my daughter such as intangible, personification, and latitude when she cannot read or spell the words who, what and where.  (Seriously.  She tried to spell those basic words for us over and over, and came up with every incorrect variation imaginable.)  Foundations are first.  You can’t build a building with no foundation, and you certainly can’t put on a roof on or install windows if you haven’t built the walls yet.  Education is no different – first things first.

Since we share custody, we can’t just decide to pull her out of public school in favor of home school (which at this point we certainly would if custody wasn’t an issue).  However, we can’t sit by and watch her wasting her time at school every day not learning the very basics which she should already know.  So my husband and I have decided to home school London before and after school, as a supplement to her normal day.  She’s having to make up 3 full school grades of reading, language and math to get up to speed with where she should be.  We know that she won’t get through all 3 grades in time to catch up before this school year is over, so we’re just doing the best we can while trying not to overload her.

I’ll be sharing all of the home school research, materials, and resource development (including tons of great printable home school worksheets) I’m working on with you in the upcoming weeks.  Thanks to all my wonderful home school parents and friends who are blogging about their experiences and have offered me help as I start to home school from scratch!